DESCRIPTION: The proposed research consists of a series of experiments which use the process dissociation procedure, developed by the principal investigator to decompose performance into separate quantitative estimates of the contributions of consciously controlled and automatic processes, to investigate the role of context or environmental support in memory performance. These experiments are expected to show that contextual information can be used both intentionally and unintentionally (automatically), and that separating the two types of effects is important for maximizing beneficial effects of environmental support. A second set of experiments focuses on automatic influences as involved in the development of implicit learning, and a third on age-related changes in selective attention and set switching. Together these sets of experiments will be used to examine differential effects of aging.